We may be currently living through Stephen King’s The Stand, but come March, the acclaimed horror novelist promises a new narrative — at least in terms of fiction. Monday, he teased a new book titled Later with the tagline: “Only the dead have no secrets.”
A full synopsis, courtesy of Amazon, is as follows. The book is due March 2:
SOMETIMES GROWING UP
MEANS FACING YOUR DEMONS
The son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability his mom urges him to keep secret, Jamie can see what no one else can see and learn what no one else can learn. But the cost of using this ability is higher than Jamie can imagine — as he discovers when an NYPD detective draws him into the pursuit of a killer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave.
Boasting a throwback Forties/Fifties cover, Later comes via Hard Case Crime, an imprint boasting pulpy novels that include two previous King offerings: the 2005 mystery The Colorado Kid, centering on an unidentified body; and 2013’s Joyland, about a Seventies carny who ends up embroiled in a murder.
King most recently released a book of novellas, If It Bleeds, in April, as well as 2019’s horror-thriller The Institute, about a group of gifted children who are captured and used for nefarious ends. “I can’t help but see a similarity between what’s going on in The Institute and those pictures of kids in cages,” King told Rolling Stone at the time. “Sometimes fiction outpaces fact.”
Near the end of 2019, news broke that King’s home in Bangor, Maine, would become a writing retreat and archive. “We are in the very beginning of planning the writers’ retreat at the house next door, providing housing for up to five writers in residence at a time,” King said. “The zoning change getting press coverage was the first step. We are one to two years away from an operating retreat.”
Next year. March. pic.twitter.com/h0D7L9dNF2
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) August 3, 2020
From Rolling Stone US
